A Treasure Trove of Educational Resources for Gerontological Nursing (Part 3)

VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN

The John A. Hartford foundation was established in 1929 by bequest of its founders, the two brother heirs of the great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company fortune. The mission of the Hartford foundation is to "improve health care for older Americans."

The Hartford institute for geriatric nursing offers the following try this resources free of charge to promote gerontological nursing and to build geriatric assessment skills: the general assessment series, the specialty practice series, and the dementia series.

Within the nursing process, assessment is clearly the most important step in determining an appropriate plan of care. These evidence-based assessment tools can be easily implemented in 20 minutes or less. Each consists of a demonstration video and a corresponding 2-page document. These assessment guides are meant to be screening tools, however, and not diagnostic tests to diagnose illness.

In this article, we discuss the dementia try this series, twelve distinct tools that can be used in the assessment of older adults with dementia.

Dementia is an irreversible, progressive neurodegenerative condition affecting memory, orientation, judgment, problem solving, personality, and social behavior. This mental condition is a non-specific illness syndrome, or constellation of abnormal symptoms, with many possible causes or underlying disease processes. All forms of dementia are caused by damage or injury to the brain. An individual with dementia has both a chronic and a terminal illness that follows a pattern of cognitive decline with behavioral and psychological symptoms. the person first experiences short-term memory loss with difficulty learning new things. The condition progresses to an inability to perform instrumental activities of daily living, then activities of daily living, and ultimately the person becomes completely dependent in all aspects of self-care.

An estimated 7 to 8 million Americans of all ages have some form of dementia. Types of dementia include alzheimer's disease, lewy body dementia, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, and pick's disease. Dementia is a significant issue in an aging society, as the prevalence increases with age and doubles every five years after age 65. Quite alarmingly, an estimated one-third to one-half of the people age 85 and older suffer from some degree of dementia. With the aging baby boomers, the number of people with dementia is expected to mushroom to 20 million by the year 2050.

People with dementia have complex physiological and psychological needs, including personal care, comfort, safety, regular exercise, social and emotional support, mental stimulation, and a structured, predictable routine. They suffer from alterations in personality, delusions, hallucinations, mood disorders, functional problems, and disorders of sleep or appetite.